


the opening of cherry blossoms

by Cerberusia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Brits In Foreign Climes, Japan, Japanese Culture, Kyoto, M/M, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 14:57:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/pseuds/Cerberusia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I confess, I didn't expect my first meeting with Potter in nearly a year to involve quite so many small deer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the opening of cherry blossoms

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the community at HD Tropes.

_haru no yo wa_  
         _sakura ni akete_  
                 _shimaikeri_  
a spring night:  
        with the opening of cherry blossoms  
                it has come to a close  
(Bashou 80; translation mine, based on Barnhill)

 

I confess, I didn't expect my first meeting with Potter in nearly a year to involve quite so many small deer.

After the War, I had left England with Goyle. My parents fled to the Continent, to France; Goyle and I went further. For some years, my parents had kept a townhouse in the magical quarter of Kyoto, Kamigyo-ku, though I had not visited it since I was almost too young to remember. It seemed just far enough from England and my family's disgrace.

The townhouse turned out to be a traditional Japanese _machiya_ , though lacking the usual shop area at the front and of course apparently unremarkable to any Muggle who might stumble across it. It was narrow, but deep, and smelt of the same combination of pine resin and sandalwood that I remembered from my last visit. When I breathed it in for the first time in over ten years, I was seized with such a longing for old times and my family with whom I shared them that tears sprang to my eyes, and I had to discreetly dab at them with the sleeve of my robes.

We didn't keep up with the news from Europe: we immersed ourselves instead in the wizarding world of Kyoto and Japan at large. Both our families - mine more than Goyle's - had old family ties to prominent Japanese clans, and we were welcomed appropriately. Nothing was ever said about that dreadful business; a couple of times we were offered sympathy for our travails, but what those travails were was never specified, and most audiences passed as if we were there on a perfectly normal extended holiday.

At first Japan seemed unreal, with its foreign speech and foreign writing everywhere, its unmistakeable Oriental architecture and inhabitants, a dream-like respite from the all-too-real memories of bright lights in cold darkness and the smell of smoke everywhere, snapping like hounds ever at our heels: but soon the situation reversed. We had arrived in Japan to the vibrant leaves and cool breezes of autumn, both foreign and familiar, the shedding of leaves mirroring the shedding of our old lives. But when spring came, bringing with it the first tinge of pink on the cherry trees, I had already begun to settle into this new way of life, my nightmares less frequent, my health steadily improving. I woke up to the sound of an increasingly familiar language being spoken in the street outside, and felt happy.

Neither of us sought employment: it never occurred to us to do so. We spent our days strengthening our family connections, reading and exploring our part of Kamigyo-ku. I learned that we dwelt in Bakuro-cho, which also held such magical spots as Kitano Tenman-gu, an ancient shrine still kept in beautiful condition, originally built to appease a poltergeist; I admired the Japanese for their honouring of tradition.

By the time _hanami_ season came in late March, I was in love. We stepped out of the magical quarter for the first time to see the cherry blossoms, still dressed in our robes but under a Notice-Me-Not Charm, as March slipped into April and the blossoms were at their peak. We Apparated to Higashiyama-ku and took the Philosopher's Path along the canal which connects Ginkaku-ji with Nanzen-ji. The many other people there, tourists and natives alike, were chattering and exclaiming with awe - but Goyle and I were completely silent. I could not speak; I could not think of anything to say which would not sound banal next to the natural beauty surrounding us. Everywhere the trees were covered in riotous pink and white blossoms, the green leaves almost swallowed up in their mass. The branches bent over the canal as if bowing to whomever might pass down it, weighed down with their blossom which shaded the verdant grass, but to us walking underneath them they seemed to form an archway, almost blocking the clear blue sky from view. Already, some petals floated down to land on the water, the ground or the people passing. Overcome, it was only some minutes after we had completed the walk that I regained my power of speech. Goyle kindly said nothing about it.

But Goyle, it turned out, was restless. Not a great reader, and so naturally blunt in manner as to find the codified Japanese speech and attitude wearying, he deeply desired something to _do_. We spoke only rarely of Crabbe, the wound too raw to worry at or even to bandage, but I knew that Goyle felt his loss still more keenly than did I. It was not without regret that we parted, but his decision to spend time on a dragon reservation in Romania fulfilled a fascination with dragons that he had had since as long as I had known him - and, though neither of us were so crude as to mention it out loud, his family's finances had suffered more than mine had after the War, and it was in his interests to support himself. I admit that I shuddered at the idea of a man of ancient - though admittedly minor - aristocratic lineage stooping to a job so dangerously close to manual labour, but I knew enough about my friend that I also knew he would not have been nearly so happy with any job deemed more 'suitable' in the professional classes.

So now I was alone. I missed Goyle, my closest friend, but we Owled one another regularly and, truth be told, as an only child I was quite accustomed to spending long periods of time by myself. I was therefore used to entertaining myself, and where better to do it than in a country I barely knew, just waiting for me to explore? As a child I had spent long, delightful hours exploring our house and its grounds, and now the expedition to Higashiyama-ku for the cherry blossoms had emboldened me and made me curious about what lay outside the confines of our magical streets.

So I went exploring, accompanied by a young man whose noble family claimed descent from the Taira and had had links with the Malfoys for nearly three hundred years. I will not disclose his name, for given the naming practices within these old families, it would be enough to identify him and his clan; I shall refer to him simply as N—

N— spoke fluent English, and he took it upon himself to improve my distinctly workman-like Japanese, the words picked up from books and the accent from eavesdropping. With his patient tutelage, I at last gained some understanding of particles and the mechanisms and reasons of the language. Like all wizards I had met thus far in Kyoto, he spoke the local dialect with its remnants of archaic court speech, and he taught me both this and the more standard Kanto-ben. We still conversed mainly in English, however - I suspect that my still-unrefined Japanese grated on his sensibilities, for already he had begun to introduce devices for making one's speech elegant. I was as attentive a student as I could make myself, for in all cultures it is understood that one must accept a gift gracefully. I even enjoyed my growing mastery. It was hard to discern what N— thought, for he kept his cards close to his chest, but I thought that he was pleased too.

In one of the drawing-rooms of the Wiltshire house had hung a painting, a woodcut done in the _ukiyo-e_ style, of a building that was not in Bakuro-cho, but still in Kamigyo-ku: Seimei-jinja, the Seimei shrine dedicated to the famous wizard Abe no Seimei. When I was a boy I had often admired this artwork which had so stood out from its predominantly Western peers, and I was therefore eager to see the actual place. N— took me, and as we passed through the first _torii_ gate, I felt that old prick of childish excitement that had been so long lost to me.

In early June we went further afield than we had previously, to Nara, home of the famous Nara deer. We made our leisurely way through Nara park to the Kasuga Shrine, the ancestral shrine of the family from whom N— claimed matrilineal descent. The stone lanterns were unlit, but the temple was as brilliantly red as the painting which hung in my _machiya_ depicted it.

It was then that I saw him. I didn't recognise him at first, nor even took notice of him; the concept of his existence here in my new life was so alien as to be inconceivable. But N—'s eyebrows went up, I turned to see what he was looking at, and there he was. Harry Potter, in the flesh. And surrounded by several rather assertive sika deer who seemed to be after the deer treats sold to tourists in his hand.

I politely excused myself to N—, and made my way over. If I had learnt anything from my wartime experiences, it was that avoidance was a poor strategy.

"Potter," I said, and watched his head snap up so quickly that he almost lost his balance. He looked utterly surprised to see me, so I was reassured that he hadn't come for me.

"Malfoy," he said, wading out of the deer, who simply followed him. "It's been - how are you?"

"I'm well," I said, which was true. "And you?" He looked quite well apart from stress-shadowing around his eyes, but what most struck me was how adult he seemed. He had grown up over the course of the past two years from a boy into a man. I wondered whether I had done the same.

"Good, good - here on holiday, actually. I had no idea you were here."

"Really? I confess that I was under the impression that your department kept tabs on me." All former Death Eaters (though some maintained that there was no such thing as a 'former' DE) were more-or-less discreetly monitored by the Ministry. I expected that this surveillance would probably continue until my death: even with Potter's testimony, the Malfoys had made enemies among the newly-powerful in England.

"The case - your case - was assigned to someone else. No-one said anything, but I think they wanted to avoid a - conflict of interest."

'Conflict of interest'. Yes, that was certainly one way of putting it. I smiled politely as I considered what to do now. It would be best to extract myself from this potentially deeply awkward situation - but Potter ploughed on:

"Look, I know we - I'd like to catch up?"

It was the uncertainty that got me. If he'd been assertive and insisted, I would have coolly but politely deflected: his earnest desire, expressed with such uncharacteristic hesitation, caught my interest. I gave him my address, trusting that he would be able to find it, and left him with the deer lipping at his sleeve. N—, well-bred as ever, didn't ask. But then, he probably didn't need to: even here, practically on the other side of the world, they had heard of The Boy Who Lived.

He turned up at my door a couple of days later, a little damp from the unpredictable Kyoto weather but otherwise well. He appeared less nervous that I would have expected, though whether that was true or merely keeping up appearances I couldn't say. We were very different people from those we had been at school. I bade him come in out of the drizzle, and watched the surreal turn my life had taken as Harry Potter stepped into my _genkan_. He removed his shoes without being asked, which both surprised and pleased me, and followed me into the parlour, which I thought had something of the 1880s Aesthetic style, blending French and Oriental decor, though with considerably less clutter. The chairs could be transformed into cushions with a simple incantation, and the table's height could be altered to suit. Right now, in deference both to my Western guest and my own difficulties in sitting _seiza_ for any length of time, they were leather wing-backed chairs.

We each took our seat, and for a long moment we considered each other. We made no secret of our scrutiny; after all, had we not shared greater intimacies than this? A House Elf - for reform laws on their bondage had not been introduced in Japan - brought us tea, and when our cups sat steaming in front of us I at last broke the silence:

"You said you wanted to 'catch up', Potter. So tell me, how goes it back in the land of the setting sun?" Having been entirely uninterested in developments in England all my time here, Potter's unexpected reappearance had aroused curiosity - and the old dread - in me.

"A lot of politics, looks like." Potter made a face. "On the ground it's pretty quiet, but you're probably not surprised to hear that there's a lot of political manoeuvring going on behind the scenes."

"Not in the slightest," I said, and took a sip of tea. Too hot; I put the cup down again.

"I just don't think I _understand_ half of it," said Potter, despairingly. "All the machinations, the ever-shifting loyalties, the factions...who can be bothered? Don't they have anything better to do?"

"No," I said frankly. "If Father's involvement with the Ministry taught me anything, it's that the sort of people who go into politics in any serious fashion, no matter what their aims may have been at the start, inevitably get bogged down in petty squabbling. Or they're mad visionary fanatics. Really, it's a wonder that governments get anything done at all."

"That's a pretty bleak assessment," offered Potter, after a moment. I shrugged: it was true. We dwelt on this statement for a moment before he changed the subject: "And what about you? Are you happy here?"

"I am happy," I said, believing it entirely. "Leaving England to live here, far away from the politics you describe, was one of my better decisions."

"I'm glad," said Potter, sounding as if he meant it.

There was again silence. I finished my tea. Potter hadn't touched his; a shame, for it was excellent. Maybe he didn't like green tea. At last, Potter burst out:

"Can't you call me Harry? _Please_. I don't want us to go back to being Potter and Malfoy to each other. I don't think of you as Malfoy." I inhaled sharply through my nose. I had been wondering when we would get to the subject we had been skirting around this whole visit, cloaked in polite enquiries about each other's health. This marked our entry into dangerous waters.

"Harry, then," I said, as mildly as I was able.

"Draco." His face contorted as he struggled with his next words. "Look, I - You know - Can I kiss you?"

 _I don't know, can you?_ I nearly said. But I thought it might come off rather cool, so I said instead:

"You may." I put down my empty teacup. Harry skirted around the table to perch on the arm of my chair, and leant down to take his promised kiss. It was very gentle and very chaste, lasting only a couple of seconds, but as soon as he leaned back butterflies erupted in my stomach. I had been a fool to think that I no longer wanted him. Clearly he had never been under any such delusion.

"Couldn't you at least have said goodbye?" He asked, not plaintively but tentatively. I just shook my head. "I thought it was something I'd done, for a while, until I talked to Goyle a couple of weeks ago and he told me where you were and why you both left the country - I was visiting Charlie and there he was! But I'm one to talk - I'm not _officially_ on holiday, if you get my drift."

"Does this mean that I can expect the Ministry's finest to break down my fireplace at any moment?" I asked dryly. He laughed.

"Well, I left a note, so we should hopefully be safe. I meant it, you know - I really wasn't trying to run into you. Although I suppose I may have hoped." He looked to the side, a little abashed. "I suppose I sort of broke your self-imposed exile, didn't I? I'm sorry."

"Not at all. _I'm_ sorry for not giving you some explanation when I left. I was very... _upset_ when I left." I swallowed down the curl of fear working its way up my throat, along with the urge to revert to my teenaged sullenness and say something snappish and uncalled for, and took his hand in mine. He had broad palms, prominent tendons and something of a tan. I recalled being told that hands could tell you a lot about a person, thought about my own, and decided it was true.

"Draco," said Harry, quietly, and brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. Did he know what it meant? A vow made, service pledged?

"No," I said, "you've done your service. It is time for me to do mine." And it was my turn to kiss his hand: first the back, as one does when swearing fealty, then the fleshy palm, as one does to a child. I had only ever protected myself, not even able to take my place as an adult to defend my family; I was a coward, and I knew it and did not allow it to bother me - he who fights and runs away, and so on - but in that moment I wished deeply, desperately for courage. For I would need it, if I was to fulfil this promise.

I could not read his face as he changed from the arm of my chair to my lap and resumed kissing me, but judging by his sudden fervour, I trusted that my message had got through.

He left shortly afterwards, clambering off me with a touch of embarrassment at having been so carried away. I could have begged him to stay, but I also craved quietude and privacy after our reunion. He assured me that he would call the next day; I told him I looked forward to it. And so I was left to eat dinner alone and consider how to proceed.

I might first do well to explain what had previously transpired between Harry and I. We both returned to Hogwarts after the war to finish our NEWTs. I was reluctant to face my peers, and so often escaped to the rooftops of the castle, which have many footholds for climbing and ledges for sitting. As it transpired, Harry also sought solitude and respite from his peers, albeit for rather different reasons, and was accustomed to doing the same thing. Our paths crossed, we exchanged brief, awkwardly civil words about our respective purposes, and agreed to leave one another alone.

So it progressed for several months until the damp British summertime at last encroached: the two of us wending our separate ways over the rooftops of Hogwarts, exchanging courteous nods if we passed. The turning point was an early summer storm, which caught us both off guard as the weather changed from 'slightly overcast' to sheeting, freezing rain. We ran into each other, all but literally, seeking shelter, and instead of calling to me, Harry grabbed my hand and held onto it while we found an open window, only letting go in order to climb in. His hand was very warm and strong, and for days afterward I blushed to recall the sensation. I knew then that something had changed irrevocably.

Sure enough, we started talking. First it was names to go along with the head-nod, less curt than before, then idle conversation about the weather, then remarks about Quidditch, then very tentative enquiries about family. Potter's surviving family, it turned out, were the sort of people who called napkins 'serviettes', which told one all one needed to know. He said we might as well call one another by our given names, and I agreed.

Gradually, without my noticing, we became friends.

From there, it seemed only a short step, only natural, to brush hands when we walked, to sit close together on narrow ledges with our thighs touching. I had never engaged in the romantic friendships common among boys of my class, but I knew one when I saw one. Harry was an unusual choice, not having been brought up in our traditions and being decidedly lower-middle-class, but I had lived through a war and all around me our ancestral traditions were crumbling: to embark on a schoolboy affair with The-Boy-Who-Lived-Twice hardly even looked like folly.

We traded a few hesitant, furtive kisses, his hand on my shoulder or my cheek. All too soon, we took our NEWTs and left Hogwarts, for so many years our second home (and perhaps for Harry his only real home). Harry was at once swept up in whatever the Ministry likes to do with its boy heroes, public appearances and Auror training and all sorts of other things, and I returned briefly to the Manor, empty of my parents, inhabited only by the peacocks.

My parents had said that they would stay to support me, if I needed them, but I knew that there was no longer any life for them in England, so I had bid them go to the Continent where they might be happy; I spent school holidays there with them, enjoying the respite from gloomy England. Here, we were not pariahs, and it gave me the greatest joy to see Mother wearing bright colours again and Father no longer casting down his eyes in the street. In our Loire _château_ and our Parisian _hôtel particulier_ , I saw them turn into my mother and father once more, not the shadows the War had worn them down to.

I summered with them for two months, revelling in the comparative freedom which France afforded me. But soon I realised that I must go farther afield, so in my weekly letter to Goyle - for I had rather fallen out with Pansy and was not close to anyone else - I asked him to be my travelling companion. I confess, I did not even think of Harry; to me, the affair was already over. Goyle accepted, my parents suggested our Japanese house, and the rest I have already told.

It may sound a little naïve, but I had not honestly expected to see Harry again. And now here he was, like an agent of Fate, to turn me in quite a different direction. I watched the rain hit and trickle down the windowpane as I considered my new outlook.

Harry arrived the next day earlier than I had expected; my hair was still somewhat damp from my shower, necessary twice a day in the Kyoto summer humidity. Fanning Charms could only do so much. Again, he removed his shoes in the _genkan_ and left them neatly arranged, but he seemed agitated.

"Draco," he said as we entered the parlour, a nervous cast to his face. "I got a letter this morning. I - have to go back. Home."

"I see," I said, neutrally. "Now, or...?" His glasses were crooked, and I longed to straighten them.

"No, no, the Portkey's set for this evening. I tell you, between the politics and Ron and Hermione calling off the engagement and everyone trying to manipulate me, I've half a mind to tell them where to shove it." He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "No, that'll make things worse. I'm sorry, there's no way to get out of it-"

"Not at all," I interrupted, and motioned him to a chair. "Let's enjoy our time together, yes?"

"Yes," he said, evidently relieved, "let's." So we got to chatting over our tea, which this time Harry drank.

"Hiro introduced me to it," he explained when I commented on it. "He said that if I left Japan without an appreciation for green tea he would have failed in his duty as a host." He frowned. "I'm fairly sure he was joking. I'm not always able to tell."

"It takes time," I told him. "For all the things that we have in common - island nations do have certain shared characteristics - the Japanese sense of humour is quite different from that of the English. As for the tea, I took to that quite quickly, I'm glad to say. Being given it at every audience undoubtedly helped."

"Audiences? Oh, making friends the Pureblood way?" His tone was teasing, and I smiled a little. What it was, to be able to smile at a jibe like that! It briefly occurred to me how much I had changed - how much, dare I say it, I had matured. Two years had passed since the war, and I was about to turn twenty; without noticing it, I had come to regard and conduct myself as an adult.

"Friends of a sort - 'alliances' is perhaps a better word. If we're using the term in its common sense, I don't have any native friends," I admitted.

"You don't?" He sounded surprised.

"I arrived with only a rudimentary grasp of the language and no desire to socialise. I had Goyle for companionship; when he left in - the middle of March, it was - I began to call on N— more often, but I quite enjoyed my own company. You know that only children are accustomed to entertaining themselves." I flashed him a quick smile, hoping it didn't look like a grimace. It wasn't that I was lying, but that I feared I had forgotten how to give a genuine smile.

"Yeah, I know. It's a bit sad, though. I'd count Hiro as a friend - I met him two years ago at work and we stayed in touch, and now he's been good enough to put me up for a couple of weeks in his house. His wife's Scottish, a translator - he's in business, supplying wood for wands and brooms and the like - so they have a house somewhere up there and Hiro often does business in London. N—, you said? The name sounds familiar." Harry squinted, as if trying to remember.

I told him the name of N—'s family; Harry raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah, I've heard of them," he said. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised about you having connections even over here."

"The Wizarding world is much smaller than that of Muggles. All our good families know each other, to a greater or lesser degree." I finished my tea. "They've had N— showing me around. He was with me when you and I met at Nara."

"I remember him. He seemed nice."

"He is, I think. Reserved, of course, even by Japanese standards, but I don't mind that nowadays. In fact, I rather appreciate his tranquillity. I haven't seen such unflappability in anyone apart from Mother." I considered, briefly. "Do you know, I think they'd get on. I should introduce them, see if she can make him laugh. Or he her - you have to soften him up a bit, but he's really not as unbending or humourless as he likes to appear. I think he rather delights in shocking me with the stranger parts of his culture."

Harry grinned, his face suffused with what I could only describe as boyish humour.

"Maybe you could even upgrade N— to 'friend'," he suggested. "Got to start somewhere!"

I considered the time I had spent with N—, as a student and guest, and - foolish as it sounds - realised quite suddenly that I had been _enjoying_ myself.

"Yes," I agreed, entertaining the thought of introducing N— to my parents and watching him charm them, "I rather think I might."

We fell quiet for a long moment. At last, Harry spoke up:

"Since I'm leaving tonight, and I'm not sure when we'll be able to see each other again, I was wondering whether you'd like to-" He paused, apparently overcome with embarrassment. I could have stepped in and saved him the trouble, for I had guessed what he wanted to ask, but honestly I derived some fun from watching him squirm.

"Oh, hell," he said at last, after a few more inarticulate fumblings. "D'you want to have sex?"

"Right now, there is nothing I would like more," I said fervently. And then I fell on him like a lion on a gazelle - or maybe on another lion, for he gave as good as he got. His mouth met mine easily as I straddled him in his chair. As ever, I was surprised by how much _resistance_ kissing seemed to involve, even with both parties being eager. Noses got in the way, and it seemed impossible to be close enough to each other, but we tried as desperately as we might to press ourselves together, so tightly that there might be no air between us.

I should like to say that we removed to the bedroom, but the truth is that we had sex there and then. Our location didn't seem terrifically important at the time. In our defence, we were technically still teenagers (myself for less than a month) at the time. We didn't quite rip each other's clothes off, but we disrobed very hastily all the same, Harry's red and green robes landing - and clashing horribly with - my lavender ones over the back of the other chair.

He seemed nervous once we were both naked; I had gathered from our time together last year that he had never taken part in any adolescent male fumblings-cum-bonding, nor even had any idea that such things were taking place under his very nose at school, so although I was also somewhat anxious, I took it upon myself, as the (only very slightly) more experienced partner, to take the lead. To this end, I reluctantly let go of his mouth and his shoulders to slide more-or-less elegantly to my knees, and took his erection in my mouth.

I had no previous experience with this style of intercourse, but Harry had no complaints: his hips arched up off the chair and I had to belatedly pin them down to avoid being choked. I took his cock in slowly; oral sex was harder than it looked. I hadn't anticipated there being so much to fit in my mouth. Even taking it slowly, I only managed to envelop about two thirds, so I settled for wrapping my hand around what I couldn't manage. There would be time to practice; I hoped for years to spend getting to know and appreciate Harry's body.

Harry gripped my shoulders rather than my hair, for which I was grateful, and made appreciative noises which in any other context would have been laughable, but here, kneeling naked before him and sucking him off, I found them shockingly, viscerally erotic. I could feel his thighs flex beneath my arms, the restrained undulations of his hips urging me on.

I was prepared in theory for Harry to ejaculate in my mouth, but in practice I was caught off guard by the strong taste of semen. Harry gasped, clutched tighter at my shoulders and said " _Draco - **ungh** -_ " and I shuddered, caught between the fulfillment of erotic fantasy and the practical reality of a foreign taste in my mouth that I wasn't quite sure I liked. I swallowed, because it was polite and because it thrilled me to have some part of Harry in me for longer than this encounter would last.

Still trembling, Harry pulled at my shoulder, and I awkwardly stood up, falling forward to brace one knee on the chair as he kept tugging.

"In my lap," he said breathlessly, "c'mon." So I managed to scramble back into his lap, straddling him, and at once he seized my erect cock. I don't know if he was any good - I suppose he must have had plenty of practice on himself - but it didn't matter: I was still painfully aroused from having had his prick in my mouth, and his focus on my cock was so intense as to be erotic in its own right. I made a mess of his hand only a short while after.

We sat there for a long moment, me slumped on top of him, both of us breathing hard.

"Here," I said, noting his slightly anxious look at the semen on his hand and grabbing my wand to vanish it.

"Thanks. Urgh, it's heating up." Harry made a face at the sunlight beaming through the paper windows. He indicated his clothes: "Do I really have to put those back on?"

"I'll settle for underwear," I said. "A few minutes of this and you realise why sooner or later even foreigners have to buy _yukata_." I climbed off him, not as gracefully as I would have liked, and stretched like a cat. Harry's expression as he took in my naked body was gratifyingly appreciative. "Speaking of which, I'm going to fetch one."

Harry's face bore the same expression as when he had been working up the nerve to ask for sex. I put him out of his misery:

"I'll fetch one down for you too, if you'd like."

"Yes." Poor Harry! He was much less tolerant of the heat than me, it seemed.

"Marvellous. Put some tea on for us in the meantime, won't you? I assume that your Hiro's taught you that in his quest to give you an appreciation for the stuff." I pointed: "Kitchen's through there."

"Can do," said Harry easily, hopping into his underwear as he went where I pointed, neglecting to ask me where I kept my teapot and indeed my tea. I smiled to myself as I went upstairs to find the _yukata_.

It's almost eleven o'clock in the morning, and already the Kyoto summer has set blanket-like humidity in the air, with a static tingle that speaks of lightning later on. There is a man who is very dear to me - and with whom I have just had sex - in my kitchen attempting to puzzle out where I keep my tea. The street outside is silent, but I'm sure that just outside the protective magical wall there are street-sellers with their carts of _kakigori_ and primary-school children on their way home and university students with nothing better to do and the ubiquitous tourists; and, much further in the distance, the bells of Gion temple echoing the impermanence of all things. I hope to hear them in person one day; I hope even more to have Harry with me when I do.


End file.
